


Conundrums and love

by adiffident



Category: The Dark Artifices Series - Cassandra Clare, The Shadowhunter Chronicles - Cassandra Clare, The Wicked Powers - Cassandra Clare
Genre: M/M, background Tessa/Jem - Freeform, eventual Tiberius Blackthorn/Kit Rook, vague happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-20
Updated: 2021-01-20
Packaged: 2021-03-12 04:47:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28879692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adiffident/pseuds/adiffident
Summary: a sort of character study spanning the break between the bookswritten in a insomniac haze in may 2020, fueled by the long ass wait for the wicked powers (trying to finish up my fics in 2021)
Relationships: Tiberius Blackthorn & Kit Rook
Kudos: 8





	Conundrums and love

**Author's Note:**

> a somewhat more positive outlook on their time spent apart + growth
> 
> totally based on Ghosts of the Shadow Market

They saw each other last by the trees near the battlefield. And then he was gone. Quite ridiculous what an Impression he made on Ty for his brief stay with the Blackthorns. He couldn't stop thinking about him for a long time, even at the scholomance. However, the desperate need to talk to Kit seemed to be unrequited. Sometimes he'd catch Livvy staring at him thoughtfully, although he didn't know why because he was following his schedule perfectly and writing to his family at specific times.

Kit told himself that Ty would be fine because he never needed him in the first place. Besides, now he had Livvy or more specifically her ghost. She was probably more of a good thing - even though he actually tried to prevent him from raising her from the dead. Ty had her and with her he had everything. That's what Kit got for clinging on to Ty with everything he had. Of course that wasn't what a grieving person needed or wanted. He should've known that it was pointless and stupid to get attached and to envision a future with him and the Blackthorns. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

When Livvy showed up during Mina's birth and Kit noticed that something was wrong with Ty he was worried out of his mind. This did not soothe the already established anxiety about everything else in his life. He gave Magnus his late mother's heron necklace in hopes that it will somehow help the boy he is stupidly in love with.

Now Ty always wore Livvy's old locket and Kit's necklace, both symbols of people impossibly precious to him. After relentless nagging on her part (for she didn't understand why boys never outright talked about their feelings) he wrote Kit a letter.  
It was something and not nothing.  
It was painful and awkward and uncertain.

Of course Kit needed to respond. It drove him half mad but also ensured an agonizingly slow correspondence. Every few months. Pen pals? Better than being nothing. They still didn't say what they felt and they didn't see each other in person either.

The time apart did them some good.

Kit griefs: for his father, for Livvy, Ty (He never should have put so many expectations on one person), the Blackthorns (his first real family), his mother; for all that is lost. He learns to let himself be loved and that there are many ways in which it can be expressed. Tessa, Jem and Mina made it impossible not to experience love in all its variety.

Ty retreats but he is loved still. He does not like to be untruthful but he now needs to bury the truth - possibly with him until he died. He has his mysteries, his studies, his Livvy and their Irene. 

In one of his experiments Ty wanted to understand how his behaviour affected others. What better way to conduct research than with the resources already nearby? He used the pool of reflection and his findings were truly shocking. How could he have caused Kit so much pain? Someday he will understand, someday they both will.

(I've realized now that I have caused you a lot of pain but that was never my intention. -Ty)

How did love explain why others behaved the way they did? When he was ten Mark had taken away the bees living in his room because he loved him. This didn't make much sense as they weren't hurting anyone. In fact, he understood the bees better than people. His older brother had tried to explain it then - and Julian countless other times after that. Ty still never quite grasped the concept. What's the causality between the one and the other? Kit went along with all of it only to try to stop him at the last moment. He'd told him he loved him and then he wished to have never met him. For Ty love was shown through staying, but Kit didn't stay, he left without a word. What was the truth? Why did he leave?

Kit did not mean to have never wished of meeting Ty. Instead he had been the door to his new life, his very first reason to stay. Now his reasons for staying have changed. He never felt he was anything particularly extraordinary besides his Sight and his claim on shadow markets. Now he was a Herondale, a long lost one at that and the descedant to the First Heir - his safe haven in Downworld gone. Tessa assured him that sometimes despairing people said things they have not thought through properly. And wasn't he also the perfect example of that? (Hopefully Ty hadn't mean t it either.)

(I actually didn't mean the things I said by the trees and I don't want you to think I did. And hopefully I didn't hurt you by not saying goodbye but I had to go. It was safer that way for everyone. I'm sorry -Kit)

This was a start, some more puzzle pieces, even though this didn't answer any of his questions. Ty wrote a bit about his experiments, the scholomance and Dru. 

Kit was glad and shared bits of Mina, Tessa and Jem in turn. 

It was enough. It was not enough at all, but they didn't fall out of the others grasps completely.

When they saw each other again it was electric shocks everywhere and staticity with every breath and their cracks not truly mended, not yet. 

Ty was the first to see. After silently sliding into the room his gaze was immediately drawn to Kit. The blond teenager seemed to be occupied with other things instead, not noticing the attention. He rapidly catalogued everything about him, everything that stayed the same and also that which has changed. His posture, his build, the air about him. And the last thing was his eyes. However, they were already staring intently into his own. It was entirely too much, he had to look away. (Kit was the only person where he would try to look into them anyways.) Ty didn't really understand his own reaction. Why was his heart beating as though he were in the middle of battle? What was so fascinating about Kit that he didn't dare to look away for long? This definitely was a mystery - one he was intent on solving or go down with it trying. Was this how attraction and love felt like? But he never had been interested in those before.

Kit thought the atmosphere in the room had changed - a sizzling quality to the air. It didn't take him long to find the cause. Oh. Ty. All tousled black hair and steely demeanor that matched his gray eyes. Still dumbfoundingly beautiful it seemed. Although it was a colder sort of beauty than the day of the wedding now so long ago. Regal, he corrected himself. Ty could rule over him any day and he would bow along willingly. How he wanted. Apparently some things never changed and his feelings haven't even faded a bit. Now he truly understood what they said about their Will. True, Herondales love but once. He supposed he will live with that knowledge forever and bare it - but 

He didn't need Ty like he needed him all those years ago, just wanted him nonetheless. Kit decided then that his love will be freely given and the time of doubt was over. It didn't matter if Ty wouldn't feel the same. At least Kit could try to make him understand and not repeat his mistakes of the past. (Now in retrospect it didn't seem like such a good idea to confess one's love during a necromantic ritual and then fuck right off to Britain after not receiving the hoped for reaction. A bit dramatic perhaps.)

Not many things left Kit speechless these days. His story, Jem's, Tessa's and their detailed outlook on historical events were shocking enough for most. But this, the intensity of it all had him at a loss.

They were caught in a battle of stillness.

Kit wrote a love letter once - one he never sent, explaining everything in extensive detail. Just to make sense of it all. Maybe someday he will even let Ty read it.

They will build something new on the crumbling walls of something old, the truest of truths and understanding.

First however the world seemed to be ending at this moment - quite a rude spectacle according to this Herondale.

**Author's Note:**

> [ I have the feeling we don't actually get much characterization for Ty..  
> He is autistic and therefore doesn't grasp some things.  
> At ten he was jealous of Julian for his ease while communicating with the world.  
> He loves Livvy and she is a calming presence.  
> He also really sympathizes with Mark and he had a great relationship with him before he was taken into the hunt.  
> He likes technology and animals.  
> He can't do math well.  
> He has an analytic mind and uses the scientific method to view the world.
> 
> I swear all the people describing him go on a tangent saying he's different and special and he (will be) / is drop dead gorgeous (one day) but that just kind of negates his character?
> 
> I mean, he is indirectly characterized by his behaviour but that still doesn't explain all his reasoning to me and I still don't really know what drives him. Seriously shame on Cassandra Clare for not giving this compelling character more attention.]
> 
> *Edit* some deleted comment pointed out that this sounds ableist? I am totally neurodivergent myself and I love that Cassandra wrote an autistic character (I relate to them as well. Social Interactions? I don't know how to have them and am inwardly screaming and outwardly silent. Where do I get a script that I can memorise?) but besides the point that he is totally gourgeous and autistic we don't get to know him very well. I have trouble giving his actions meaning because I don't really have his motivations. So he's partly a blank slate for me? I just listed all his traits that I knew of him off the top of my head for a way to put down my thoughts. All I'm saying: spare some Ty POV please because I really really don't understand people unless their actions are explained to me, same as when their actions are explained I think "yes this is the only way how to act in a situation such as this, even if it is considered weird by other people who've read the same book" (case in point: Neil from aftg, understandable - carry on you murder magnet). Also i find it annoying that they describe his beauty in such depth. He's pretty. Okay? What does this tell me about him? He clearly doesn't give a fuck about that so why waste the paragraph space on that? Is my thought process understandable? Like fan fiction writers normally characterize the characters they write about themselves, but I can't do that. So I just scrapped everything I found about him together, which is not much (at least that's how I felt). I am desperate for good Ty content, if you have recommendations I'll gladly take them.


End file.
